Cause Marketing

When I saw this circular in yesterday’s mailbox from Lowe’s I was puzzled. It looks like cause marketing effort themed to Earth Day, but there was no further explanation anywhere in the circular. My first reaction was, “please, Lowe's, don’t do this on your own. You won’t get it right." A million tree giveaway in time for Earth Day oughta be done in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation or with the charity American Forests . So I Googled ‘Lowe’s Million Tree Giveaway’ and low and behold Lowe’s IS partnered with American Forests. The press release went out Monday and it’s an admirable campaign. The million trees are indeed free from Lowe’s and optimized for your growing zone. You can point your smartphone at a 2D barcode on each tree bag to get tree facts, how to plant the sapling, how to care for it, and the like. The press release also says you can also register the sapling at lowes.com/earthday . Why would you want to register your tree? The press release says that reg...

Friday, April 22 is the 41st Earth Day in the United States, a day that was originally conceived as a kind of environmental ‘teach-in.’ But I think it’s fair to say that most Americans understood those first few Earth Days not as a ‘teach-in’ but as a reminder to clean up litter, as the poster at the left from the great cartoonist Walt Kelly underscores. America made great strides against litter. After that it made great strides against air pollution, and water pollution. The country still has litter and air and water pollution. But air pollution in particular is now better than it was in, say, December 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was founded. National carbon monoxide emissions are not quite a third of what they were in 1970. Ammonia emissions are lower now than then, so are nitrogen oxides, particulates, sulfur dioxides, and volatile organic compounds. Both surface water and groundwater are cleaner than they were in 1970 thanks to the Clean Water Acts and the Safe ...

Today, Saturday April 25, 2009, when you go into Macy’s and give $5 to the National Park Foundation, Macy’s will give you $5 off a $15 (or more) purchase and a ‘shopping pass’ that allows you 20 percent off basically anything else in the store. In addition some undefined amount of the money generated will go to ‘local participating organizations that conserve and protect our environment.’ It’s all in celebration of National Park Week , which I was not previously familiar with. The local charitable partner in my market is the Hogle Zoo , a facility and organization that I’ve always found underwhelming. There’s a lot to like here. First off, I like the idea of the National Park Week, although so hard on the heels of Earth Day I don’t know whether or not this is the right week for it. Other nonprofit organizations like heart disease and the breast cancer charities have successfully tread this path before. But it’s not clear to me that the National Park Foundation has the promotional jui...

...And Keith Richards Feels Fine Today is Earth Day and in honor I review the current Louis Vuitton campaign for The Climate Project , Al Gore’s nonprofit wherein some 2,300 volunteers in the United States, Australia, Spain, India, the UK and Canada deliver a version of the Nobelist’s famous climate change slideshow. Strictly speaking this isn’t cause-related marketing. If you buy the Vuitton suitcase in the photo a donation is not made to The Climate Project. Still, I think there’s value for cause marketers to study this advertising campaign meant to call attention to Vuitton’s efforts on environmental sustainability and to the mission of The Climate Project. A quote from Al Gore on the Vuitton website puts it this way, “The Climate Project has made great strides in educating people all over the world about climate change and the solutions that will be necessary to solve the crisis. We welcome Louis Vuitton as a valuable partner in advancing this message.” The art to the left is a b...